How To Make The Post-Mattis Pentagon High-Tech Savvy

Policy
I comment on quantum computing and AI, and American national security.

Aerial view of the United States Pentagon, the Department of Defense headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.Getty

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis announced yesterday he will be leaving his post after the New Year. Pay no attention to the media claims that this is in protest of President Trump’s decision to pull US troops out of Syria, or to draw down our forces in Afghanistan. This decision has actually been a long time coming, and now is a very good time to think about what we’ll need from a new Secretary of Defense, when it comes to getting the Pentagon and America ready for the coming era of high-tech warfare.

Here’s some immediate thoughts.

First, James Mattis did an outstanding job as Secretary of Defense, and deserves full kudos for his tenure there, and his contribution to our nation’s defense over nearly half a century of service. That said, Mattis belongs to an earlier “blood and guts” generation of military leaders, men who were trained to defend the Fulda Gap against the Soviet Union during the Cold War, then retooled to storm the desert wastes to search out and destroy Iraq’s Republican Guard and Scud missiles.

Now, we need a Secretary of Defense who is able to ride the high-tech frontier on which the future defense of America will rely. “Mad Dog” Mattis was not that person; his replacement must be.

A new Defense Secretary will need other skills to prepare us for the 21st century.

He or she will have to understand the urgent priority and the full extent of the China threat to America, which reaches far beyond conventional military threats like submarines and missiles and Stealth aircraft, and increasingly revolves around the struggle for high-tech supremacy—the struggle that will determine who dominates, and who’s dominated, in the 21st century.

He’ll have to be comfortable talking about AI and Quantum and robotics and autonomous systems and even 5G wireless, and be able to contact the people who understand and work on these technologies, at the touch of a phone pad.

He can’t be put off by Silicon Valley’s innovative culture and mindset, which will be crucial for reshaping the Pentagon for the high-tech future. He or she will also need the skill set to get those companies focused on national security, not just market share; and get them to understand what war fighters will need not just today, but in two or three decades.

He will have to understand that in the 21st century economic warfare will be as important as amphibious warfare; that dominance in the information domain, including cyber, will be as decisive as dominance in air power or sea power; and that neutralizing the threats from China and Russia demands a coherent political strategy as well as a military strategy.

People are already asking who I think is ready to assume these awesome responsibilities, and who could make not just a good but a great Secretary of Defense.

My first nominee would be John Rood, currently the Pentagon's Under Secretary for Policy. Unfortunately, Rood may have too much corporate baggage from his days at Lockheed Martin to pass Senate confirmation. That’s unfair, but very little in Washington politics is.

My second pick would be former Congressman Randy Forbes of Virginia, and former chairman of the Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee. Forbes was up for Secretary of the Navy in the days of the Trump transition, but it didn’t work out. This could be his moment: he brings experience and knowledge of how Capitol Hill works, as well as the Pentagon.

A third choice would be another former member of Congress, former Senator Jim Talent of Missouri. The story is, he was on the short list for this job before Mattis took it. Maybe this time the list gets shortened to just one name: Talent himself.

Any women on my list? Yes, Mira Ricardel, John Bolton’s former deputy at the National Security Council. She fills my bill in every way; she might even be first on my list, if her dust-up with the First Lady back in November hadn’t made her a political pariah with this White House.

In any case, we’re on the brink of a new era in America’s defense posture. President Trump can ensure we take the right path, or stay where we are, which is the wrong path. Come January, it’s really up to him.

ARTHUR HERMAN's latest book, 1917: Lenin, Wilson, and the Birth of the New World Disorder, is now available in paperback from Harper Perennial.

I am a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and Director of the Quantum Alliance Initiative, and co-author of “Quantum Computing: How To Address the National Security Risk” (Hudson Institute, August 2018). I’m also the Pulitzer Prize Finalist author of nine books, incl...